lost political affections

I have, for the past 50+ years had an affection for or at least a soft spot for Israel. I have never been too sure why but perhaps it is because I have always been attracted to the underdog. I can remember at a fairly early age reading about the Holocaust and then about the activities of the Irgun who, in their minds and mine, fought against a super power for a Jewish homeland (today they would be called terrorists) and won. I remember in 1967 meeting two young Israelis who had fought in the 1967 war and how in a strange way how envious I was that they had had the opportunity to fight for their country against overwhelming odds and win. But in the past few years that youthful perhaps overly romantic view of Israel has changed. But even more importantly my disappointment and perhaps even outrage at the Canadian government’s response to the problems in the Middle East has continued to grow.

I don’t know what the solution to the impasse in the Middle East is. I have on a couple of times had the opportunity at a Gathering to talk to both Palestinians and Israelis about their countries and they had no solutions either. I understand that Israel feels (with some just cause) vulnerable to some of its neighbours who have fairly consistently denied its right to exist. I also understand why people who have lost their citizenship, their land and the right to exist as a free and independent people are more than slightly pissed off.  

The creation of Israel was a long and complicated process. However the primary argument that people of the Jewish faith had the right to move to and create a new country solely because people of their faith use to live there (there had always been a small core of Jewish people living in Palestine) was and is absurd. If that argument was the standard for how the international community made decisions then the Indigenous peoples of Canada, United States, Australia and New Zealand amongst others would have long ago been able to reclaim their land. Israel was created at least in part as a response to the collective guilt after WWII when the western world’s culpability in the Holocaust became apparent. In hindsight it may not have been the brightest decision the world has made.

In my mind Israel lost the right to claim to be the underdog when it started acting like a colonist power. It has forced generations of people to live in refuggee camps. It has denied those people the basic rights that all democratic countries offer their citizens. It has continued to absorb land and to build new housing upon that land. Its concept of negotiations with specifically the Palistinians is quite similar to that of successive Canadian Government's attitude to negotiating with First Nation communities such as Grassy Narrows in Northern Ontario. We will take everything that is of value and then we will negotiate what you can have.

Canada in the past week or so was one of only nine countries that denied Palestinians some recognition or official status at the UN. They did so under the guise that unilateral decisions were not conducive to negotiations.  To make it worse there are some signs that Canada is not going to renew its commitment to providing aid to the Palestinian refugee camps in retaliation for them have the audacity to want some status at the UN.  A few days later, Israel announce the building of 3000 new homes on lands traditional perceived to belonging to Palestine. Canada only sighs and suggests that it may not be conducive to negotiations.

To do nothing to condemn a colonist power that deprives a whole nation of its rights is shameful. To deprive those people of humanitarian aid is an embarrassment that should cause us all to hang our heads in shame or to raise our fists in defiance

Bridges and Ferries

Something rather remarkable occurred on Friday. For most Canadian it had no effect on our life and we will never ever know about it.  But for a relatively small number of people who live in the Northwest Territories their lives have got immeasurably better. There is now a bridge across the Mackenzie. River. Up to Friday if one wanted to go from the south to Yellowknife one had to wait for the rather small ferry tocros the river. The Mackenzie Is a big river that has a fierce current that drives all the way to the article ocean.  The ferry is not very big and I would guess that one transport truck would take up most of the room.

No matter how slow or inconvenient the ferry was, the main problem was that for two months of the year the ferry was not available.  In the spring the current is so strong that it is not safe to cross. For those two months folks who live across the river are unable to travel south unless they fly. It means that no fresh foods are available and I suspect that what little is available cost more. I have to assume that the bars and restaurants need to order and stock enough food and drink to last them the two or so months.

Now that there is a bridge, fresh food will be available 12 months of the year and they will able the drive out whenever they wish. For the folks of Yellowknife I am sure they are celebrating. But a little bit of the romance of the north is gone. I will always remember my excitement at seeing the bison as I waited for the ferry or how I felt as I crossed the Mackenzie for the first time, feeling the currant pull at the bow.

I am glad that there is a ferry - it just makes sense. But I am very glad that I got cross the Mackenzie the old way.

My New Best Friend

I made a new friend last week….. I have spent a lot of time with Harvey in the past week or so. It has been interesting and at times he has presented me with some challenges. Of course the sad thing about my new friend Harvey is that within a week he will be scattered on the ground.

Harvey, you see, is a paper mache head.

I have for a number of years either helped or in the past few years made on my own some sort of piñata for my granddaughter’s birthday in June. For the past 3 years it has been a soccer ball (which is harder than one might think). Last year the ball was hard enough that 5-6 girls and a few boys could kick it around the back yard for 10 minutes before it finally broke apart. But I have never made a piñata for my grandson as his birthday is in December. It never made sense to have them flailing away at some object while there was snow on the ground ( they live in Sudbury and snow is always a possibility at that time of year). This year he asked for one and I could not say no. When I asked what he wanted me to make, he said he wanted me to make a head. So I did.

The final result looks like the result from a weird coupling between Mr. Burns from the Simpsons and Mrs. PacMan.  I hope they have fun in the snow bashing it with a baseball bat.

Driving through Fog

No this is not a bit about how cloudy my mind can be on some days but instead it is a minor rant....

For the past two days driving to work has been a bit more dangerous than usual. It has, to say the least, been rather foggy. There have been sections of the road where it was so foggy that seeing 20 feet in front of me was difficult.Seeing a car 25 feet away ahead of me was impossible until they applied their breaks.

Which raises the question. Why don't people turn on their headlights when it is that foggy? Is it because they assume that if their driving lights are on, it means that their back lights are on too? Or do they just not think?

I am afraid that my natural cynicism would suggest that people are both not bright enough to realize that their back lights are not on  - they must be aware that they can't see cars in front of them - and they are not concerned enough about the well being of others on the road.

While I suppose the obvious solution is to suggest to and then force all auto manufacturers to make all new cars have both front and back lights running light, it seems to me that it should be far simpler to teach people some basic manners and common sense.

Please note that I said "should be".

Television

Like many people of my age, generation and political bent, I tell the world that I do not watch much TV. And that is true. In fact I since June have watched virtually no TV except when I have been visiting someone. However, like many people I am very aware of the seductive power of television. I know that I could very easily be seduced into watching programs about cooking, fixing-up-my-house, science and nature and even on occasion Coronation Street. I have in the past controlled my tendency towards addiction by not having either cable or satellite services wired into my house. In fact with the exception of one year when my landlady paid for it, I have never had access to any channels other than ones my antenna brought it to the house. It is easy to be virtuous when one cannot be tempted.

I now however, have a satellite dish attached to my outside wall (or actually my lady lady’s outside wall). And it did not cost me a dime. When I no longer could receive two of the three stations I use to get due to the switch from analogue to digital broadcasting, I lost both TVO and Global. I was irritated. I was disturbed not only by the fact that there was now only a local broadcaster available who seem to show a lot of sitcom repeats, game shows and paid commercial broadcasts, but also because someone, somewhere in the government decided that I needed to pay for watching television. I have always thought that having to sit through countless commercials repeated endlessly was more than enough payment. Now I was suppose to pay a company for the privilege of watching those commercials. That just did not feel right to me.

However there is a program available through one of the local satellite suppliers to provide free satellite service for four years for those people who previously have not had cable or satellite coverage. It is only a basic level of coverage but I get the main networks. In fact I seem to get two or three stations from each network. So I can now watch news from Winnipeg or Sudbury or Toronto. Nice. Interestingly, I cannot get the local television station via my satellite. I am sure at one point I will get inundated with calls from the satellite company trying to get me to upgrade my coverage. I don’t think so.

If what I can now get is representative of what is available on all of the channels, I was better off without the dish. Last night after watching one program on TVO, I looked at three other programs. After uncontrollably groaning through five minute bits of bad dialogue for each program I turned the television off, turned on the CD player and listened to a book as I played with some wool. A much more civilized and entertaining process. 

 I am grateful that the free coverage is available. I think I am even more grateful that there is nothing available (except for perhaps Coronation Street) that will even come close to tempting me to become addicted.

Selling stuff

I spent Saturday at a craft sale. It was an interesting experience.  While I have, in the far distant past, sold a few things at a large show, I have never spent a whole day beside my stuff -  having people pass comment on it. It takes a strong ego not to occasionally feel a bit rejected as people walk by and barely look at things that you have spent hours on.

For the past two or so months I have used almost of my spare time to wash wool, then to spin it and finally to weave it so that I could have enough product to sell. For the most part I need not have bothered as I sold relatively little. I didn’t lose money. I made enough to pay for the cost of the booth and for all of my wool and dye supplies for the next year, but I certainly did not get rich.

I suppose that one could argue that crafts people never get rich and that we should do it for the love of the craft. And one would be partially right. I do it because it is fun and rewarding to me. I like how both the raw wool and the finished product feels in my hands; I like dyeing and then spinning the wool - never being really too sure at how it will look and I like how my weaving room looks with all of my stuff hanging on the wall waiting for a buyer. There is immense satisfaction in every step of the process. There is a continued sense that I am doing something that people have done for 10,000 years; that I am continuing a long line of spinners and weavers that make functional things for people. But I would like to sell it to. Not just for the money- although that would be nice – but also because if people buy it, then it would be some sort of validation that the work is good.

I brought my spinning wheel with me and I had little kids and senior citizens stopping by to watch me spin. There were a lot of people who stopped by and chatted, some of them had tried spinning or weaving and we exchanged stories of how or why we got started. Some people just wanted to chat about where the wool came from while others appeared to actually be interested in what I was selling. One couple had three rugs on the floor. They just could not decide which one to buy. The woman took out a crystal suspended from a chain and held it over the rugs. They did not buy any of the rugs because the crystal did not spin in the right direction. It was a bit frustrating. Other people said they would be back and of course, with one exception, they never did come back.

But the good news for me was that enough people stopped by and said that they liked my stuff and perhaps most importantly that they liked the colours. I say most importantly because I am still unsure about colours and how to use them. It was nice to hear people say they liked my stuff.

So will I do it again? Of course. I need to get rid of the things that I have and I have a few more projects that I want to try. In spite of the fact that I didn’t sell as much as I wanted or hoped to, some people did buy something. It struck me at some point in the rather long day that selling was very much like hitchhiking. Long spells of dreary boredom interspersed with a few moments of an incredible high. All in all – not a bad way to spend a day or a life.

Excuses....

 On occasion I come across someone’s blog. A number of them appear to have been dormant for weeks or even months. Quite frequently there is a rather lame apology about how they got busy or that given the chaos of their lives the blog became less important to them or perhaps they had nothing to write about. These explanations always seem to end with a promise to do better in the future. I always said that that would never happen to me.

It has and I have no excuse. The urge to write just left for a while. Perhaps I had no more words in me, perhaps I found another outlet or perhaps I was just tired of pumping out a couple of thousand words a week for a few months. It also may be connected to the fact that that I have lost most of my TV stations because of the almost universal switch to digital from analogue broadcasting. (I really don’t know what that means – but it sounds as if I do). I therefore have not

watched either CBC news or the Agenda on TVO – I am lacking fodder for my rants. It is hard to get irate when I don’t know what is going on. But I miss the routine and the discipline of writing. So I am going to try harder to post something on a more regular better. Who knows, I may even get a bit creative and make up things.

Of course without the news and without me travelling  - perhaps I have nothing to say. I have made a conscious choice to not to write about  my kids and grandkids  nor do I write about my teaching career (although Lord knows there could be lots to talk about). Considering that I spend a good chunk of my time at school or with my family – that doesn’t leave much to discuss.I could of couse talk about my “playing with wool”.  I have been consumed in the past month or so trying to produce enough product to enter a sale down in Cobourg in a few week. I think I will almost be ready the day before the sale.

For those of you who have been checking in on occasion to see what is happening – thank you. I will try to do better in the future.